


The View from Inside

by BloodStainsBlue



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Although this is a universe I may explore more, Canon Divergence, Gen, Noct & co didn't leave the Citadel or the city before the attack, We can imagine that the canon kind of proceeds as normal from here, hints of Noctuna but it's not really important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 18:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16392929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodStainsBlue/pseuds/BloodStainsBlue
Summary: This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. That was all Noctis could think of, right along with every swear that he’d ever heard in his life. But there was no time to think of that. Not when the whole of the citadel was on fire, the height of security in the land crumbling around Noctis like the house of cards he’d always been vaguely aware that it was.





	The View from Inside

_ This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. _ That was all Noctis could think of, right along with every swear that he’d ever heard in his life (most of them from Gladiolus, when he sat back and thought of it.)

But there was no time to think of  _ that.  _ Not when the whole of the citadel was on fire, the height of security in the land crumbling around Noctis like the house of cards he’d always been vaguely aware that it was. 

The negotiations with Nifelheim were supposed to be peaceful. Standard. The beginning of the end of a war that had been waging for at least as long as Noctis had been alive. There was an air of tentative excitement around the citadel. Advisors were poring themselves over endless paperwork, brushing up on various Nifelheim customs, histories, events, making sure they were ready to deal. Coming up with plans, arguments, possible bargaining chips in the inevitable compromise that they would both have to make. Noctis was fitted for a new suit that made him look more powerful and put together than he’d ever felt that he had been. Even Gladiolus and Iris were getting gussied up for the first meeting of that they had thought would be many. 

Noctis didn’t know who fired the first shot. He had been horribly underprepared for the meeting, as least as far as Ignis was concerned. Noctis had only go so far as to memorize the speech that he was required to make, by order of his father. He didn’t bother to learn the names of all of the officials and bodyguards that were there. 

No, he’d spent the whole meeting up to the point that it all went to Hell staring at Luna. He hadn’t seen her in person since they were children, only having seen her when she was caught by a news camera, usually giving a speech behind a podium or running from the palace to her car with an entourage hiding her. 

Noctis was convinced that no news camera was able to capture her beauty. Her head was held high, her jaw set tight in an authoritative frown, but there was a kindness in her eyes that was unmatched by any woman that Noctis had ever met. She wore a white dress that flowed at the waist but was tight at the top, accentuating the curves of the woman that she had become. Her hair was intricately done, but looked so natural that it looked like one light shove would cause the whole ensemble to come tumbling down. 

That was what Noctis had been thinking of before he’d been shoved out of his chair, the wind knocked out of him as his side slammed into the stone floor below him. He glanced up and the first thing he was aware of was the sound of various gunshots and the clashes of knives, mixed with the telltale sounds of human panic—the sounds of screaming and various footsteps clattering along the floor as people desperately tried to find an exit. 

The next thing that he was aware of was a heavy weight draped across his legs. He sat up with a soft groan, seeing his shield sprawled across the floor, a small, single hole in his chest and blood oozing out of the side of his head. 

“Gladio!?” Noctis shouted, struggling to pull his legs out from under the massive man. He was completely dead weight, but Noctis thought he could a faint rising and falling of his shield’s chest against his legs. Once Noctis had finally managed to pull his legs out from under Gladiolus, he crawled over to him, gently rolling him onto his back. His eyes were closed, his face completely blank—he looked more peaceful than he ever had even when he’d been asleep. “Glad, get up! This is not the time to be passed out!”

Noctis opened his mouth to shout again, but he paused when he felt a tugging at his shoulder. “Noct, get up, let’s go!” It took him a second to place the voice as Iris, and he turned to see her worried face from over his shoulder. “C’mon, Iggy found an exit we should be able to use, but we have to go now!” Noctis turned his head further to see Ignis crouched by a panic exit, waving the two of them over desperately. There was a deep gash running from his right shoulder down to his elbow, but otherwise he seemed to be unharmed. Noctis moved to get a good look at Iris—there’s blood stuck to the front of her dress, a splash of it on her cheek, but there were no visible marks of harm anywhere on her body. 

“We can’t just leave, Glad—”

“Noct, we have to go, now! He’s done his duty as your shield! We need to go!”

“But he could still be alive, we can’t—”

“Yes, we can and we will!” Iris insisted, tugging at his shoulder again, harder this time. 

Noctis wanted more than anything to fight harder, but he knew Iris was right. If they stayed much longer, Noctis would be joining Gladiolus on the floor, and both Noctis and Iris knew that that wasn’t what Gladiolus would have wanted, wasn’t what he threw himself in front a bullet for Noctis to do. 

“Yeah… yeah, okay,” Noctis said, nodding his head. He pulled away from Gladiolus, trying to ignore the weak groan that left the older man’s lips as he crawled across the floor, following Iris over to the escape door undetected. As they crawled, Noctis looked over at the chaos that was surrounding him—there were bodies littering the floor, servants and advisors who were sacrificing their lives for their kingdom, some of whom Noctis had never bothered to get to know. There had been no sign of either Luna or his father, but he had seen Clarus pinned to the wall, a sword in his chest, causing him to retch as they snuck. 

“Shush! We’re almost out!” Iris hissed, moving aside so Noctis could crawl into the panic space first. She quickly followed behind, with Ignis stepping in right after, shutting the hidden door behind them. 

Once the latch had shut, Noctis turned to face his companions, hunched over in the small space and squinting in the dark. It was eerily quiet behind the walls, surely soundproofed in order to avoid detection by any invaders. It was offputting, how quickly the world went from chaos to peace. “Where’s dad?” Noctis asked, the first thing on his mind. 

“I saw him escape with Lady Lunafreya after the first bullet had been shot,” Ignis answered, removing his glasses and pressing his fingers against his eyes. His normally immaculately styled hair had been tousled in the fight, loosely hanging over his forehead. “Perhaps they’ve gotten to the emergency exit, which is where this tunnel leads. We will move to see if they’ve made it there.”

“And if they haven't?” Noctis asked, his voice coming out much more shaky and weak than it has since he’d first been put in that wheelchair years ago. He hated how afraid he sounded, but he couldn’t stop himself—now that the fight was behind them, his nerves were beginning to catch up with him as the adrenaline faded away. “If they’re not there. Then what? Do we leave them behind like we did Gladio?”

“Stop it!” Iris hissed, reaching over and weakly shoving Noctis. “We did what we had to do! We need to keep you alive! You’re the only heir this kingdom has now!” she pointed out. 

Ignis sighed, gently placing his hand on Iris’ elbow. “Iris, please. I know you are the new shield, but we musn’t lose our heads,” he muttered, and he hears Iris deeply exhale and let the tension leave her body. “Or our hearts. We will give them a little time to arrive. But we must leave either way before our window becomes too small,” he explained. “If we’ve lost King Regis, we mustn't lose you as well.”

Noctis knew that Ignis was right, both Ignis and Iris, but it still hurt more than anything he could have known. He never wanted to be the one to have to make the hard decisions, but he’d come to terms with it thinking that he had a few more years before he would ever have to. “Okay. Let’s go.”

The crawl was long, but it felt even longer due to the roughness of the long untended floor and the darkness all the way down the corridor. It seemed that no one had been concerned with making the panic corridor comfortable for anyone who was escaping. Noctis made a mental note that if—when, when, when—they got out, he would make all of the panic rooms and escape paths much less cumbersome. 

After what seemed like hours of crawling but was much more likely to be about half of one, Noctis felt a buzzing in his back pocket. He turned his head over towards Iris, saying, “Get it. Please. It could be dad.”

He paused for a moment, giving Iris time to reach forward and dig into his back pocket. The crawling ceased for a time while Iris handed over the phone. Noctis fumbled with the screen for a couple of seconds, groaning when a sudden light flashed in his eyes when the phone turned on. “Who’s it from?” Iris asked. She crawled over, glancing over Noctis’ shoulder. 

“Prompto,” Noctis answered, lightly cursing under his breath. Not the person he was looking for. “Apparently there are soldiers and Daemons in the streets,” Noctis whispered, shaking his head, shooting Prompto a message telling him to get out of the city if possible. 

“This wasn’t just an attack on the palace,” Ignis muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s a full invasion. They’re hoping to wipe Lestallum off of the map completely.”

“We won’t let them,” Noctis promised, sliding his phone into his breast pocket. “We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to stop them.”

“How?” Iris asked, taking Noctis’ hand in her own, giving it a tight squeeze. “As far as we know, we have no army, barely any advisors, and hardly any citizens. What kind of country are we? How will we fight back?”

“We’ll figure that out,” Noctis said, returning the touch to Iris’ hand. “If the army is in, then that means the wall is down.” _That means the king is dead—probably Luna, too._ Noctis pushed the thought out of his head, sliding his fingers away from Iris’ tight grip. “Some people will escape. And they’ll fight with us.”  
“We cannot be sure of that,” Ignis pointed out, but Noctis shook his head.

“The people who escape will be strong. They’ll help. I’m sure of it.”

“He sounds like a king,” Iris said, lightly shoving Noctis and pointing ahead. “C’mon, we’ve gotta be out soon. Then we can plan our heroic escape and start fine-tuning that plan.”

The rest of the crawl was quick—they’d made it most of the way out during the first stretch. Noctis had at first bumped his head against the wall, unable to see the exit in the dark, before he pushed it open and crawled out. 

It had seemed that the power to the Citadel had been cut, because the usually ultra-fluorescent hallways were dark and dull. Some of the walls had been smashed in, and the smell of blood and death was permeating throughout the entirety of the building.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Noctis said, bringing both of his hands over, taking one of Iris’ hands and Ignis’ in the other. “We’ll take the Regalia and get out of here.”

“And what will we do then?” Ignis asked, stumbling when the walls of the Citadel shook. A blast from outside of the building. It seemed that they’d sufficiently made their way through the city and were now doing their best to knock the palace down. 

“Like I said. We’ll fight back. We’ll win. We have to.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come follow me on [Tumblr](http://bloodstainsblue.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> Thanks for reading if you made it this far! I just wanted to write something kind of dark, kind of sad. I may want to explore this universe more in the future. I would love to see the road trip adventures of Noctis, Ignis, Iris, and maybe Prompto, wouldn't you? Although I'd miss Gladdy. 
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading! I love you all! Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Constructive criticism? Let me know! Muah!


End file.
